Unbelieveable! The results showed that a 10+yr board is just as good, if not, better than Phantom 380!

LK

22nd June 2010 10:10 PM

Phantom Race 380 took 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th and 9th

Yeah what a desaster :-))

Papounet

22nd June 2010 11:58 PM

There is only one first place, next year...

Per

23rd June 2010 02:13 AM

Imagine a race where you took a 10 years old formula board and had it competing against the latest models. NO chance it would get close to the medals.

It is quite interesting that longboards are something completely different. A new model should benefit from the latest knowledge and beat the older boards without problems..

;-)
Per

Ken

23rd June 2010 11:18 PM

Raceboards are just a compromise. They do nothing exceptionally well, but do everything well. Formula kicks butt in winds over 10 knots and long boards kick butt under 10 knots.

I have been burned more than one time racing in Open class when I didn't make the right choice between my long board and my formula board. Raceboards don't have to make that decision, they do fine in all conditions.

Will I ever buy one? Can't say just yet, but they are all too heavy in my opinion. If you make a race board, make it light.

Unregistered

25th June 2010 04:27 PM

everything is a compromise.
There is no such thing as no compromise.
The formula board has huge compromises.

To list a few-
large fin for going upwind means reaching in strong winds compromised. so upwind downwind courses needed. compromise also fixed 70cm fin makes it difficult to launch and sail in many locations. compromise. also means wide boards needed to hold down fin which leads to-

wide board hideously affected by chop which means cant foot off for speed and have to point high and use a correspondingly large fin instead(narrower board smaller fin would be quicker in more wind). compromise

big fat wide board needs large sail to work hence creating barrier to entry of less skilled sailors and hence minimal participation. Compromise

plenty more to.................

All classes have compromises, the most succesful ones in windsurfing have chosen to make the compromises in the interests of mass participation.

another point is the relative performance of old and new designs.
Back in the day there used to be intensive mass participation in longboard windsurf racing. In this environment the designs got very good. Nowadays there is only one manufacturer of raceboards, and they have none of the expertise of the old raceboard crew. Simply with the current absence of rules in the class there is no excuse for the phantom not completely destroying the old raceboards, the fact that they dont tells you a lot about the skills of the phantom design team or maybe they deliberately made it slow so as not to make the old boards obsolete- yea right! :-)